Sabesin Went Live On KPFK’s Arts In Review, Hosted By Variety’s Julio Martinez

Los Angeles, CA – Actress/writer/natural redhead Andrea Sabesin’s one-woman show GIRL, YOUR HAIR’S ON FIRE! SEASON 2, opened on Tuesday, February 5th to a sold-out crowd. The show continues its run Tuesday nights at 8pm through March 11, 2008 at the Acme Comedy Theatre. David Downs directs.

Sabesin, whose television appearances include roles on “Shark”, “The King of Queens”, and “Gilmore Girls”, had the packed house roaring with laughter Tuesday night as she offered up a tightly woven theatre piece that moved seamlessly from her harrowing trips through the Hollywood Hills as a “Gourmet Courier” driver to a not-so-blissful pre-natal yoga class (she was the only non-pregnant, childless attendee).

Sabesin and Downs took part in a live interview – which included a short excerpt from GIRL, YOUR HAIR’S ON FIRE! SEASON 2 – on KPFK’s Arts in Review on Thursday, February 7th. Hosted by arts journalist Julio Martinez, Arts in Review airs from noon to 12:30pm on KPFK 90.7 FM. (www.KPFK.org)

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Los Angeles, CA – Actress/writer/natural redhead Andrea Sabesin will present Girl, Your Hair’s On Fire! Season 2, the follow-up to her critically acclaimed one-woman show, on Tuesday evenings at 8 pm beginning February 5 and running through March 11, 2008 at the Acme Comedy Theatre. David Downs directs.

Sabesin, whose television appearances include roles on “Shark”, “The King of Queens”, and “Gilmore Girls”, has conceived a show that explores identity with an unusually rancor-free mix of wit, physical comedy and unalloyed amusement with her state-of-life. Rather than merely unspool a string of characters or impersonations, Sabesin offers a kaleidoscope of insights about who she is, whether she fits in and if it matters anyway in a tightly choreographed piece that moves seamlessly from her harrowing trips through the Hollywood Hills as a “Gourmet Courier” driver to a not-so-blissful pre-natal yoga class (she was the only non-pregnant, childless attendee) to the hallowed tradition of the Sabesin Family Cocktail Hour – replete with an assortment of Trader Joe’s snacks, vodka martinis and antics by her lovably eccentric parents.

Downs, a renowned drama professor and director who taught at Northwestern University from 1973 until his recent retirement, feels Sabesin’s show strikes just the right note. “Andrea’s show is such a delight because it never falls into cynicism or sentimentality. Because her material is so ‘relate-able’, the audience will find themselves laughing as much at themselves as at her performance,” notes Downs, whose former students include such high-profile performers and industry folk as Stephen Colbert, Laura Linney, John Logan, Zach Braff, David Schwimmer, Marg Helgenberger, Kim Williams, Anna Gunn, John Logan (writer/producer Sweeney Todd), producer Greg Berlanti (“Everwood”; “Dawson’s Creek”; “Dirty Sexy Money”) and Adam Chase (executive producer, “Friends”).

Raised in Memphis, Sabesin counts her Southern upbringing as just one of the diverse elements in her sense of self, which also derives from her warm, idiosyncratic Jewish family and her trademark flame-colored hair and freckles. She also possesses a remarkable singing voice, which, over the years, has landed her a record-breaking number of gigs as the wedding singer, never the bride – a dubious distinction she has woven into her show to hilarious effect.

As chronicled in her first show, Sabesin, like many other little red-headed girls that could sing, nursed dreams of starring in “Annie” on Broadway someday, but eventually re-tooled her creative ambitions, majoring in Theatre at Northwestern University in Chicago where she met director Downs. She later studied improvisation at both Second City and at the Groundlings.

The creative underpinnings of her current show are “mainly about identity. Do we fit in? For most of my young life, I didn’t feel I did. But later on, you learn to carve your own path,” says Sabesin, who went to several different primary schools where she was, by turns, the only Jewish student at an Episcoplian school, the only non-Orthodox student in a Hebrew day school, and one of few white students at a largely black school.

In fact, the universal quest to feel comfortable in one’s own skin has become not only a running theme in Girl, Your Hair’s On Fire! Season 2, but a dramatic wrap-around device as well, with Sabesin demonstrating what she calls “The Cozy Position” as she transitions from scene to scene. It’s a habit and posture with which most people are familiar: snuggled in one’s favorite chair, in slouchy-comfy attire, swaddled in a throw, taking stock of our lives or simply of the day. However, although “cozy” implies comfort, it is “also a fragile position. A million different things can shatter it – a phone call, a letter, a recollection of something that happened, or of unfulfilled expectations,” she explains.

Still, what sets Girl, Your Hair’s On Fire! Season 2 apart is the way in which Sabesin deftly intercepts these curve balls, dispatching them with wry humor and heart, imbuing the show with a more universal appeal – even to those whose hair is not ablaze.

WHAT: Opening night of the six-week run of Andrea Sabesin’s hilarious and heartrending one-woman show Girl, Your Hair’s On Fire! Season 2

WHO: Andrea Sabesin, writer-performer and gifted comedienne, winningly wends her way through the latest laugh-inducing installment of her critically acclaimed show. Sabesin, whose television appearances include roles on “Shark”, “The King of Queens”, and “Gilmore Girls”, skewers a slew of subjects: her enduring Donny & Marie fixation, her lovably loony family, her endless stints as the wedding singer, never the bride, perky pre-natal yoga nuts and the fateful Cobb Salad that brought her to Jennifer Aniston’s door…

MORE: “Sabesin...exudes a thoroughly winning persona...expressive voice, exquisite comic timing…There is not a wasted word or movement in this brief introduction to a genuinely funny performer."”
- Variety*